Jun 28, 2011

Jun 28, 2011

vol 128 No. 13

"We have rejected much of our immediate [evangelical] past," says Josh Carney of his church, University Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. Looking to older traditions, "we found that some of our objections had already been addressed."

Christians need to support the cause of a Palestinian state that will live peacefully beside Israel—and at the same time reach out to our Jewish neighbors in friendship and love and shared commitment to the common good.

There are two ways to reduce the federal budget deficit: cut spending and increase revenue. Serious progress will require both. But neither can solve the larger problem behind the nation's budget woes.

I had just arrived in a new parish when a member told me how, in a horrific flash of fewer than two years, her husband died, her son was incarcerated for drug possession and her daughter committed suicide. The woman was disconsolate, drowning in grief and despairing of her empty, painful future. That's when her pastor dared to say something so bold, so outrageous, that she never forgot it.

The scholarly quest for the roots of the religious right has already passed through several iterations. Darren Dochuk's impressive book builds on this work and pushes the narrative back another generation or two.

Werner Herzog's hypnotic documentary—which takes us into the Chau­vet Cave, where the oldest paintings known to humankind were discovered in 1994—is the first movie to suggest a convincing reason for the invention of 3D cinema.